The UAE and the task of nation building in Yemen

London - As the Saudi-led coalition continues to liberate parts of Yemen from the Iran-allied Houthi re­bels, the task of nation building has already begun, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is playing a central role in resurrect­ing Yemen’s infrastructure. Obaid Salem al-Zaabi, perma­nent representative of the UAE to the United Nations in Geneva, confirmed that his country sup­ports the UN’s work in launching the 2017 Yemen Humanitarian Re­sponse Plan through its Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Zaabi stressed that the UAE has adopted “a comprehensive human­itarian approach” to supporting Yemen economically and logisti­cally, including with humanitarian assistance. The UAE’s efforts, he said, are in­tended to put Yemen on a path to reconstruction and development, which will, in turn, give rise to a better future for Yemen, full of se­curity, stability and prosperity. The UAE’s initiative to rebuild the liberated areas of Yemen through the Emirates Red Crescent (ERC) had succeeded in transform­ing people’s lives, Yemeni officials said. “By all measures, the response of the Emirates Red Crescent… to the humanitarian situation in Yemen exceeded all expectations,” said Fa­had Saeed al-Menhali, Yemeni am­bassador to the UAE, last February. The ERC’s nation-building plans for Yemen are broad in scope and aim to address numerous issues af­flicting the country’s people, some of which predate the start of the conflict in 2015. Beyond rebuilding the country’s poorly developed infrastructure, the organisation plans to build and finance schools and hospitals, reconstruct the sewage system in a number of cities and rebuild nu­merous ports and airports. As of now, the Red Crescent is in the process of renovating 154 schools in Aden, the temporary capital of the internationally recog­nised government. Next in line will be schools in the less-stable Shabwah governorate, which was once a haven for al-Qae­da and was recently on the receiv­ing end of US drone strikes target­ing the terror group. The ERC also recently signed an agreement with the Yemeni gov­ernment to fund, rebuild and main­tain schools in the Hadramawt re­gion, which has been hammered by continuing shelling from the Houthi militia. Abdullah al-Musafri, head of the ERC’s team on the ground, said the project was part of the UAE ‘s and the ERC’s commitments to provid­ing long-term support for the peo­ple of Yemen. After the civil war started in 2015, the Emirates was one of the first countries to begin a humani­tarian drive in Yemen, launching a month-long Yemen: We Care cam­paign that generated $11 million in donations in its first three days. In the last 20 months, the UAE spent more than $1.1 billion on improving Yemen’s energy and electricity sectors. Funding for the country’s transportation sector, which includes rebuilding airports and economically essential ports in Aden and Socotra, has reached $132 million. The amount of fund­ing for Yemen’s public sector and civil societies is estimated to have exceeded $123 million. The UAE has also worked to strengthen Yemen’s civil services in liberated areas. The country re­cently donated five rescue vehicles to the Civil Defence Department in Aden and provided a number of fire-fighting trucks, special equip­ment and reconstruction efforts in the southern port city. The ERC recently set up solar-powered water generator projects in the Al-Aik region of Al-Reeda and Qusayr in the coast of Hadramawt and plans to restore 20 hospitals in 11 provinces in the war-torn coun­try in collaboration with the World Health Organisation. Nasir Baoum, Yemen’s Health minister, said the stability witnessed in Aden has “encouraged intensifying develop­ment efforts in the health sector”. A vaccination programme target­ing 643,000 women and children against measles and polio is also a part of the strategy.